


A Toast, To The Last of a Dying Breed

by hairdye_silverfindings



Series: AP English IV Fanfiction [4]
Category: The Fall (2006)
Genre: F/M, Ghosts, I'm in love with this movie, Inspired by The Fall, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Suicide, Murder, Suicide, shameless self-insert, the afterlife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hairdye_silverfindings/pseuds/hairdye_silverfindings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are just ghost, forgotten and dead, floating on in the Forever of other people's lives.<br/>He wishes he had been saved, but wishes aren't for the dead.<br/>She's captivating and vibrant, but he is a coward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Toast, To The Last of a Dying Breed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm actually in love with The Fall. Probably the best movie I've ever seen. I need to write something for it, and my English teacher is pretty squeamish so I thought I'd do a bit about ghosts and murder for her. This is really only based loosely on the movies and the characters, because Roy Walker is just so interesting that I couldn't not write about him, it skirts that thin line of fanfiction and original fiction in my mind, and I hope you love it. I hope my English teacher loves it too.

 

He stared at her from afar because he was afraid. She was strong and confident and he might come off that way, but he was really just a coward. A coward with a mask and a bottle of pills. He watched the way the light bounced off her hair, short and curled, the way that her mouth twisted when she laughed, a great red grin, the way she walked, as if she owned it all. He watched her talk to others about books and he wanted her to know just how well-read he was, but he stood in the shadows and thought about things to say to her when she talked about _The Odyssey_ and _Hamlet_ , but he never spoke. He watched the way the little piece of flesh on her ravaged neck fluttered when she talked. He wondered how she’d died.

He wandered around their grey world and listened to the shake of pills in his pocket, glimpsing flashes of beautiful places when he blinked. This world wasn’t beautiful. It was fake and ordinary, stage lights and rope tricks, cheap imitations of grade things. He missed what had been, sweeping landscapes and blue pools, exotic butterflies and green pastures. He didn’t know if he missed the white hospital room that had smelt of oranges, or if he was just sick of this life and would have taken anything over it.

“They told me you don’t have a name.”

The voice startled him, but he didn’t jump, he just turned and stared as she sat on the bench next to him. Her hair looked like red curtains and her earrings were gold, glittering in the light, swinging like pendulums as she smiled at him. He sat straighter and cleared his throat.

“Is it true?” She asked and he watched the flesh around her neck, torn and absent of blood.

“What?” He asked and he felt like a fool.

“Do you really not have a name?” Her cheeks were pink, like a nurse in the hospital, and her skin was sallow like the rest of them.

“No, I have a name.” He dropped his head slightly and was embarrassed of the circles under his eyes.

“My name is Constance.” She told him, looking out at the set, with workmen crowding around it like ants, blaring lights and Styrofoam rocks. What progress. “I was born in 1929.” She grinned and looked back at him.

“My – My name is Roy.” He said, stuttering and looking away from her. “I died in the 1920s.” She reached up and touched the flesh around her neck.

“Broken and disregarded things, cast off to haunt the shadows of forever.” She said, looking out again. She crossed her ankles over each other and stretched her legs out. One of her stockings had fallen down to her ankle, scrunched up like sand on the sea.

“How did you die?” Constance asked finally, her curls blowing as they turned a fan on on set. “I was murdered.”

“Murdered?” Roy said, glancing to her, bringing his hands into his lap, and leaning forward, slouching down. He looked like a hospital patient still, and like a masked bandit, fantasy and reality flickering like frames. “How? I mean, if…” She smirked.

“In an alleyway behind a cinema.” Constance said. “They came up behind me and all I felt was cold against my neck.” She reached up to her neck, playing with the skin that fluttered. Roy found himself watching the fluttery bit of skin, and he looked away. “The next thing I knew was I was laying on the ground, cold and grey.” She smirked lightly and looked at him, meeting his eyes. He didn’t looked away. “I didn’t know I was dead for the longest time.” She laughed and reached out to take his hand. Roy let her, her tiny hand sliding into her, long fingers wrapping around short ones. He remembered the hot tiny hand of the girl in the hospital and he squeezed Constance’s tighter. She felt like the air around him, there was no change in temperature of her skin, or his for that matter.

“I died in the hospital.” Roy told her, “I took a bottle of pills and fell asleep and never woke up.” Constance was quiet for a while before she moved closer to him and looked up, searching his face. “I wasn’t a happy person.” He said finally.

“Will you take the mask off?” She asked and Roy reached up, tugging at the red mask over his eyes, feeling the bandit bit of him falling away as he blinked into the stage lights, glancing at her and offering her a hesitant smile. He dipped his head, shying away from her big eyes, thinking of his greasy hair and pale skin, his old white shirt and soft trousers. Bare feet and cold toes. At least he could walk in this life.

“You’re beautiful.” She said finally, tipping his face towards hers and touching the freckle under his eye. “Were you an actor?” Roy laughed and shook his head.

“Stuntman.” He answered, quietly. “I’m not beautiful. Not compared to you.” Constance looked away and if she could blush she would have.

“I worked in wardrobe.” She said. Roy nodded and she put her head on his shoulder. He brought his arm up to wrap around her shoulders, the bracelet from the hospital cutting his skin. They sat, silent and grey, for a long while, watching the living move around them, while their own kind flitted in and out, bemoaning their lost lives, until the studio went dark and everyone went home. They still sat, and Roy smiled and he wasn’t scared when he kissed her under a fake tree.

**Author's Note:**

> *whispers*  
> Roy Walker wants you to comment.


End file.
